The Second Layer of The Cursed Painting
Le Vivant Jardins (The Living Gardens)
Adventurers entering this level might arrive through a painting from the previous dungeon layer, La Belle Tour, depicting Dorian arrogantly presenting himself as a druidic deity, lying nude in the sky, touching an empty garden, bringing it to life.
The second layer of the Cursed Painting presents itself as a patchwork quilt of sprawling gardens, orchards, rolling green hills, becalming groves, and gargantuan greenhouses beneath a warm, cloudy sky. However, the clouds and sun are mere edifice, simply being painted onto the domed ceiling of the layer, enchanted to move by the power of the Cursed Painting. It had once been a meticulously planned paradise crafted by Dorian to woo a lady love, but once he was spurned, he cast it all into his painting in a fit of rage. That very rage quickly infected and corrupted the gardens into a nightmarish parody of pastoral beauty, turning the flora and fauna into grotesque horrors.
The environment is semi-illusory; boundaries loop unnaturally, and time dilates in pockets, freezing moments or rushing through seasons at a glance. Making navigation treacherous without magical aids or keen perception. Hazards include carnivorous undergrowth, hallucinogenic pollens, and shifting terrain where hills "breathe" and paths rearrange like living veins.
The Living Gardens are divided into three distinct regions: the Verdant Garden, the Grandiloquent Greenhouse, and the Forsaken Grove.
The Verdant Gardens are a collection of massive rolling hills, nearly 500 square feet across, and a set of large flower beds (10x15) in front of a squat hut and a derelict, overgrown cabin. Upon the rolling hills, it is a random chance for the party to find themselves stuck within a time bubble (DM select a random number, then rolls a 1d4) for an hour. Flowers release pollen that has a random effect based on the sun's position in the sky (dc16 constitution saving throw (stun at dawn, 2d4 poison damage at noon, charm in the afternoon, sleep at sunset). The Quinn Redda operate and exist in and about these flowerbeds, weaponising the billowing clouds of pollen to weaken their targets.
At the top of the hills is a log cabin where the former gardener of Dorian Grey, Gregor Leone, lives. It is a safe place within this level of the Painting, wherein the party can rest and tend to their wounds. The Cabin is on the borderline between all three of the sections of the level, giving a great jumping-off point for the party to delve into the Forsaken Grove or the Grandiloquent Greenhouses. Gregor acts as something of a peacekeeper amid the tumultuous tensions between the beings that populate the level of the painting.
Down a rocky path to the east, with trees growing larger, darker, more gnarled as the canopy chokes out all sunlight, is the Forsaken Grove. A region of forested landscapes populated with strange daises and obsidian tables etched with dark and foul runes. Each one is dedicated to a dark act or perversity of dominion or control that Dorian has ever performed. Damned dryads and treants, aberrations of wildlife, and the vicious ghosts of Dorian's sacrifices. If the travellers fight their way through the grove, following the river and purifying/destroying the relics and remnants of Dorian's sins, liberating the souls of his sacrificed lovers, they will come to a grotto.
Without the power from the sacrificial tables and ritual daises as well as the misery of his dead lovers, the wards over the pool have gone. Allowing the party to descend into the water and enter into a submerged catacomb. They will need to navigate a small maze before finding themselves in a 40-ft wide, 30-foot tall, domed chamber. There, they must fight 1d3 shambling mounds, a corrupted elder treant, and a greater imp (double hp stat, +3 to AC, 30ft movement speed, Silent Movement (soundless movement while invisible), sneak attack, two attacks per round).
Once the cruel monsters are thwarted and destroyed, the party can dig through the muck and rotting leaf litter; they can find a silver chest with a dragon engraved on the lid held in the hands of a dead woman. Upon opening the chest, they will uncover a consecrated +2 silver short sword (advantage on striking infernal creatures and deals 2d4 radiant damage to them). With a note penned by a woman by the name of Telesia Orloris, the woman who spurned Dorian's love and affections. To those who have been ensnared within this place, I leave to you, this blade. May the gods punish Dorian Grey to the fullest extent. May he scream until Eternity fades into antiquity!
To the west of the Verdant Gardens and Gregor's cabin is an illustrious garden path of polished marble and gilded lanterns that leads to the Grandiloquent Greenhouse. It is a tall, dominating glass 13 floor building full to bursting with floral life, so much so that branches and vines are spilling out of the windows. Each floor of the greenhouse is filled with plants all the way to the ceiling as the ground underfoot is blanketed in a thick coat of loose soil. The light streaming in is coloured a dark green as the ground, camouflaging any shambling mounds, dryads, vile bouquets, skulking, and hiding within the shadows. The party must search, seeking out the painting frame to get to the next floor.
Each floor has a random number of vile bouquets, shambling mounds, and corrupted dryads (1d4 number of instances). The soil is potent and extremely fertile, being receptive to druidic magic or living plants. They will have to fight their way through the greenhouse, carving through Dorian's abandoned horticultural projects until they discover a hidden 14th floor. The floor is flooded and overgrown, mould and algae coating the walls and vines as thick as a person spill out from the centre. Which sits a gigantic plant that looks like a bundle of spiked pitcherplants. There, the party will encounter Rose and Peony; Tiefling twins with crowns of flowers and thorns on their heads with bright green pupiless eyes.
They immediately invite the party to enter into the gigantic plant and be relieved of all their burdens. When the party refuses, the twins drop their smiling innocent act and decide to take the party by force. Their skin unfurling at the seams to reveal the twins are living plants (play both twins as druid characters, capable of summoning plant creatures to aid in their assault of the party). During combat roll a 1d10, and on a 8, 9, or 10, the gigantic plant will release a seed, that will release a plant clone of a person. Upon their death, the central plant will unleash barbed vines and ingest their corpses (if successful, the plant will ressurect the pair with -2 AC and a third of their HP. This will keep happening until the central plant is destroyed).
Upon the death of the gigantic plant, the vines will crack and wither away, revealing the golden frame of the next painting. The painting is of warped stairwells and passageways tied and knotted into the shape of Dorian's sneering grin.
This layer has notable figures; those damned by Dorian for "mistakes", those who earned his wrath and those who exist as a result of the very painting itself. Everything is held together like a glass bauble, whole but unbelievably fragile, were even the slightest change could cause everything to come crumbling down.
Gregor Leone: A once former employed gardener and groundskeeper. Who, after giving a melancholic Dorian some unsolicited advice on love. For his efforts to help his employer, Gregor was forcibly transformed into a Swine-kin and cast into the painting. He does not regret cautioning Dorian to temper his obsessions and impulsiveness. Now, he seeks to try and keep what little peace he can in the garden, cautioning adventurers to avoid the twins and stay firmly away from the Grandiloquent Greenhouse.
Telesia Oloris: The entire reason for the garden's existence. A singer, poet, bard, and actress whose performance drew Dorian to her. But she couldn't handle Dorian's intensity, obsessiveness, pride, and neediness, and she rejected him bluntly and flatly. Resulting in Dorian kidnapping and throwing her into the painting. This action is what led Dorian to banishing and sacrificing all those who would reject him in future. Especially knowing that Telesia had a holy blade that could undo his control over his immortality. She can be communicated with a Speak With Dead spell.
Rose and Peony: two former adventurers who were talented rougish fighters who fell victim to one of Dorian's darker experiments, a plant capable of perfectly replicating a lifeform. Their former personalities are now nothing more than vestigial windowdressing as they seek to satisfy their "mother" and her ambitions to swallow the entire floor, and hopefully, escape the painting and incorporate the real world.
